By AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE, The Hague, Netherlands, Jul 17 – The International Criminal Court Tuesday marked its 20th anniversary Tuesday urging all nations to help its “vital work” seeking justice for war crimes victims, despite its controversial acquittal of a former Congolese militia chief.

“Two decades after the Rome conference, the system of international justice created by the Rome Statute continues to make waves towards building a culture of accountability,” insisted chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.

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Even though the tribunal, based in The Hague, faced many challenges “its work is increasingly shaping norms, casting a deterrent shadow across the globe,” she said.

The tribunal’s guiding Rome Statute was agreed in July 1998, and it opened its doors in 2002 as a court of last resort, to prosecute those behind the world’s worst atrocities in places where national authorities could not or would not step in.

In 16 years, it has sentenced three people, two Congolese militia leaders and a Malian jihadist.

Other cases have collapsed. In some instances wanted suspects remain at large, including Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, and four trials are currently underway.

Last month, former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba, initially sentenced to 18 years in prison for war crimes, was acquitted on appeal in a blow to the prosecution.

The court has been repeatedly criticised, accused of unfairly targeting African nations, even though complex initial probes are also underway in the Palestinian territories, Afghanistan, the Philippines and Ukraine.

In 2017, under investigation for suspected crimes against humanity in which 1,200 people were said to have died, Burundi became the first country to withdraw from the tribunal.

Bensouda acknowledged the court’s work “is not an easy task given the complex environments” in which it operates.

She highlighted “large scale criminality on the ground, changing political climates, with dwindling resource capacity, and varying degrees of cooperation” despite “ever-increasing demands for the court’s intervention.”

But she stressed: “Attacks on the court to undermine its important work, or in the service of Machiavellian schemes to shield the culpable, must continue to be met with the determined and unequivocal voices of support from principal states parties and civil society.”

All had a responsibility “to ensure we don’t disappoint the victims embroiled in devastating conflicts all over the world, past or present.”

The victims carried the “hope that the cold calculus of international politics does not abandon them, or worse undermine humanity’s shared values, and common yearnings of peace, stability and the protective embrace of the law from the world’s gravest crimes.”

Giving a key-note speech, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said he was honoured “to celebrate the anniversary of this vital global institution. I say ‘vital’ because the world needs the ICC.”

“With the alarming proliferation of the most serious crimes around the world, the ICC, and all that it stands for, is now needed more than ever,” he added.

He urged “all states not to politicise” the court’s decisions, and insisted its “challenges are not insurmountable”.

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